Of Donkeys and Robots

So I'm reading ANCIENT JEWISH MAGIC and Gideon Bohak, the author, is telling of an "erotic spell" in which a charm is written on a piece of tin, to which he adds the parenthetical statement "it's a tin line between love and hate!" Let me explain. This is nothing like the Gideon Bohak I know. Well, there is a footnote in which he makes a fond, gently humorous allusion to his hometown. But the violent whimsy of "it's a tin line between love and hate!" is present nowhere else in this academic... some might say dry as burnt toast... work. Well! Gideon Bohak does favor a jaunty exclamation point in his parenthetical statements (as seen in the example already given), which might count as whimsy if you are a scholar of ancient esoterica. Before I continue exploring this thought, I want to say that I wonder what Gideon Bohak's editor thought of "it's a tin line between love and hate!" Did Gideon Bohak have to fight for it? I am developing an enhanced sense of respect for Gideon Bohak. Anyway, so, yes! In the very next paragraph we have an example of Bohak's penchant for parenthetical exclamation points. He has moved on to a spell which requires the magician (or is it the client?) to "take meat of a donkey in your mouth." I'm sorry I told you that. But I had to! Because Gideon Bohak presently adds the parenthetical statement that putting donkey meat in your mouth is "not very kosher!" Exclamation point his, I reemphasize. He goes on to examine cultural depictions of donkeys as "stupid, stubborn, and lazy," which reminded me, by way of contrast, of the other book I am reading right now, THE ILIAD, in which mules have been put forth more than once as some of the greatest animals you'd ever want to meet. They're always plowing fields faster than an ox, or pulling a big tree trunk down the side of a mountain. Those are the two things I can remember mules (in both cases, metaphorical mules) doing in THE ILIAD. Which brings me to another subject! Last night in bed, as I read THE ILIAD and Dr. Theresa worked a crossword puzzle, I suddenly shouted, "Hey! There are robots in this book!" Let's let that hang in the air for a while. Because I also want to say that I ran into Kelly Kornegay in Jackson, Mississippi, a couple of weeks ago, at the 50th anniversary party for Lemuria Books, which I didn't even tell you about, because why should you know every single thing that goes on in my life? Anyway, Kelly and I were talking about THE ILIAD, and she mentioned living in a new place where she can look out the window and see a donkey, and I got to tell her about the heroic mules of THE ILIAD. Pretty soon it got dark and Ace Atkins and I were standing in front of a stage watching 92-year-old bluesman Bobby Rush, of whom I took a photo with my very own phone and perhaps I will "post" it below. Also, there was a guy dressed as a cowboy who did some of the greatest dancing I've ever seen. He was up there all by himself dancing in his cowboy suit while opening acts played, and finally I thought, I should go dance with this guy! Let's get this party started! And Ace took a video of it, which I texted to Dr. Theresa (who had stayed home) so she could see my moves, and she immediately texted back "Have you been drinking?" And that's an interesting question but I bet you want to get back to the robots I read about in THE ILIAD last night. "They were made all of gold, but looked like living women." So you know I immediately thought of the DC comics characters the Metal Men, just as Homer intended. Furthermore, I checked Emily Wilson's endnote, and she calls them "robot women," so I'm not just coming to crazy conclusions. In fact, I think somebody installed A.I., because "They had a consciousness inside their hearts." And as I was lying there marveling about the golden robot women with consciousness in their hearts, I remembered thinking that I had noticed robots in the RAMAYANA as well. And I didn't just lie there and think about it for a change. I hauled my sorry carcass out of bed and went upstairs and found the RAMAYANA and refreshed my memory about these hydraulically powered automatons: "mechanical men, silently driven by falling water in some hidden way." And much like them, I am now running out of steam.

It Bleeped

Reading Tacitus, I get to a part where this guy dreams there's gold buried under his field. So he runs up to Nero like Chicken Little and says "There's gold in my field!" You can see where this is going. There's no gold. And Nero... well, you know how Nero is. Anyway! So! The translator, A.J. Woodman, is crazy in love with footnotes. There's hardly a page without multiple footnotes at the bottom... or "foot." And are his footnotes dry? I don't know. Is the Sahara dry? I'm assuming the answer is yes, although I can easily imagine a big smart nerd who would tell me otherwise. Anyway, A.J. Woodman's footnotes are so dry they make the Sahara look like the grotto at the Playboy Mansion, as Dennis Miller would put it, causing us all to throw up. But in this singular case, A.J. Woodman's footnote is... whimsical? I don't know what it is. Here, I'll quote it: "'Dream guided treasure hunter to Roman coins' (headline in The Times [London], 11 December 1998)." So that footnote gives us nothing, really. That's not like A.J. Woodman! And really, the Roman coins found in 1998 could not be more different than the gold dreamed of by Caesellius Bassus, which was "not in the form of money but in a raw and ancient mass." (Also, unlike the Roman coins found in 1998, it didn't exist.) I guess A.J. Woodman just thought it was a fun story. It's still a mystery, if so, why he suddenly and very uncharacteristically wanted to be "fun." And certainly it would be going too far to postulate that he put forth the headline from the Times of London as a counternarrative... as if to say, "Hey, sometimes a dream CAN lead you to buried gold! Never give up, kids!" I couldn't find the article (I didn't try too hard), but I found the same story reported in the Irish Independent a full day before the Times of London picked it up. Here's a paragraph: "'In my dream I could see myself in the middle of the field pulling up a haul of coins,' Mr Roberts (46), a plumber, told a treasure trove inquest in Newport, south Wales, yesterday. 'When I had the same dream again a few nights later I took a few hours off and went to the field. I took just two paces and my metal detector bleeped.'" A treasure trove inquest! I didn't know about those. You know what this puts me in mind of? The other day, McNeil told me he had dreamed of salmon patties. And that was weird, because the day before - that is, the day leading to the night of McNeil's dream - I had been thinking about salmon patties! AND... later that night (the night AFTER McNeil's dream), Dr. Theresa - having been privy to neither my salmon patty thoughts nor McNeil's salmon patty dreams - suddenly announced, "I'd like to make salmon patties!"

Orange Vinyl Spider-Man Sequel

I finished reading THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES but no I didn’t. Because you get to the end of the first book and then you have to – by law! – read the next volume, which is called INTO THE MILLENNIUM, or, I suppose, THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES: INTO THE MILLENNIUM. Either way, it sounds like a Spider-Man sequel. I need to get over to Square Books and order it up! Meanwhile, the Million Dollar Book Club is working on THE RIGHT STUFF. And here’s what I noticed! Wally Schirra, one of the Mercury astronauts, is a real prankster. Like, he has a little box and tells people he caught a mongoose in it. Then when they try to reach in and pet it, well, it jumps at them like one of those snakes out of a peanut can. You know those snakes. Wally Schirra’s mongoose is some kind of furry sock on a spring. And that made me remember my short story collection MOVIE STARS, when a character goes to an auction and tries to buy a novelty mongoose in a box, operating on the same principle. I got out the catalog from the auction of Bob Hope's personal effects, which I actually attended, and confirmed that Bob’s mongoose box, as pictured in the aforementioned catalog, appears to professionally assembled, whereas Tom Wolfe sure made it sound as if the mongoose box was something Wally Schirra thought up and slapped together himself. I think that’s an accurate memory of my reading experience. But the book is downstairs by the bed and I don’t care enough to go get it. Then I started imagining whimsical fancies, such as, maybe Wally Schirra gave Bob his very own homemade mongoose box! Wouldn’t that be something? It doesn’t seem overwhelmingly plausible, really. Although I’m sure Bob Hope hung out with the Mercury astronauts at some point. Nor does it seem plausible, though, that Wally Schirra was manufacturing his own trick mongoose boxes when there were plenty of trick mongoose boxes, apparently, in the nation’s many novelty emporiums from coast to coast. Maybe Tom Wolfe got this one thing wrong! Unless! What if Wally Schirra saw a novelty mongoose box in a store and thought, "I could make this myself for half the price!"? I guess we'll never know. Speaking of stuff we'll never know, I noticed again that the Bob Hope auction catalog wasn’t too heavy on provenance, which reminded me that I wanted to check it, and not for the first time, to see if I could find a clue (I couldn’t) about what cartoonist made these clever Bob Hope caricatures I bought at the auction. When Quinn came to town, I was like, “Look, this guy made pictures of Bob Hope as if rendered by Goya… and, uh… [trying to think of some names of other artists]” And Quinn was like, “Are these supposed to look like Bob Hope?” And I was like… “!” Because of course! Why would Bob Hope have these hanging in his office if… and my voice, as well as my thoughts, trailed off as Quinn stood there with a doubtful look on her face. So let’s get back to THE RIGHT STUFF! As I texted Megan with photographic proof, I still have an orange vinyl 45 RPM record with recordings from the actual Mercury space flights. It came with my G.I. Joe space capsule, the interior of which glowed in the dark. I got scared and thought it was a ghost! Give me a break, I was three years old. (Speaking of Megan Abbott and Square Books [see above], I’ll be “in conversation” with Megan about her new book EL DORADO DRIVE on August 13. I wouldn’t mention it so early, but I just started reading it and on page 4 [of the galley, anyway] there’s a “bird crying in the night.” As a review of the owl-spotting portion of the “blog” will remind you, we have given much thought to the matter, and just because a bird cries in the night, that does not make the bird an owl. Maybe it’s just an upset bird. I’m not worried! There are plenty more pages to come that might have a definite owl in them.) But I really came here to report about THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES, didn’t I? I think it’s going to end up being JOSEPH AND HIS BROTHERS length. And contrary to my advice (usually about Thomas Mann), which is, essentially, read the first 200-400 pages and then you’ll be hooked, I was really bopping along with TMWQ for, oh, let’s say 200 pages… then I hit a real dry spell until page 630 (though, miner-like, I uncovered, here and there, random chunks of boldly glittering sarcasm that made it worth the trouble). So you have to get over a very big hump in the middle. Can you handle a 400-page hump? (Remember, this is just the first volume I’m talking about.) But when I got to page 630 I think I said out loud, “Things are starting to happen!” On page 630. Then the book was over not many pages later. Well, it was and it wasn’t.

McNeil's Li'l Sausage Bits

Welcome once more to "McNeil's Li'l Bogie Bits," where McNeil reads a 700-page Humphrey Bogart bio and I pass the savings on to you! As you may recall, we were on the fence about whether the casting of Dooley Wilson in CASABLANCA was a legitimate bogie bit. As McNeil put it, Wilson "was not their first or even second choice, but....that's how sausage is made. I'm not sure that's how sausage is made." Which reminds me of a whimsical quotation from a whimsical narrator in my beloved bestseller (it's neither beloved nor a bestseller) MOVIE STARS: "There is a reason no one wants to know 'how the sausage is made.' How the sausage is made is terrible." And here you may note the most significant difference between my "blog" writing and my "real" writing: on the "blog," that second sentence would have ended in an exclamation point. And, honestly, in most of my "real" writing too. I wonder why I didn't do it! But we are getting far away from McNeil's li'l bits. McNeil says that Lena Horne was considered for the role of Sam! He also contends, rather boldly, that CASABLANCA would have been "twice as good" if Lena Horne had played the role. And I do say that such an observation indeed qualifies as a bogie bit. Another bogie bit is of a sad nature, as it depicts Mayo Methot, in a drunken rage, getting herself wedged tightly behind a sofa somehow. But let's get back to sausage. By a weird coincidence, I was listening to an opera when I received the first bogie bit alluded to above. That's not the coincidence. So, in a while, I was like, "What the hell is this opera about? I don't speak whatever language this is!" And I looked up the plot on the "internet," and this guy in the opera gets in trouble for eating a sausage on the moon! I guess you think I am making that up. But I will tell you the name of the opera - THE EXCURSIONS OF MR. BROUCEK - so you can look it up for your damn self. So I was like, "Sausage!" And, believe it or not, it was, by another coincidence, the second opera I had listened to THAT WEEK about somebody going to the moon. (The other one was Il mondo della luna by Baldassare Galuppi... and I can almost swear that Haydn wrote an opera with a similar title and subject matter, but now I am just showing off my knowledge of moon operas.) This is getting long, but I have more to tell. I just hope the lousy AT&T "internet" doesn't stop working before I'm done. We're getting something better installed on Monday! Leslie came over to watch INLAND EMPIRE the other night and we couldn't finish because the AT&T "internet" crapped out. So we turned off the lights and put on these plastic toy rings that have colored lights shooting out of them and Dr. Theresa requested Kraftwerk, so we danced around to that for a while, and then switched to a playlist by Kate Tsang. But the main point is that... you know all those books I am reading all the time in various circumstances? Now I've had to add a book that I put next to my laptop in my home office for whenever the "internet" goes kerplunk and I'm just sitting there with a stupid look on my face and nothing to distract me from the terrible abyss. There are books littered all over the place around here, it's a sad mess. Oh! So... one of the most recent books I had downstairs, on the side table near my favorite chair, was DAISY MILLER by Henry James, which somehow I had never read before. And in it, a character quotes from MANFRED, the poetic drama by Lord Byron, and I liked the quotation, so I dug out the old SELECTED POEMS of Byron and started reading MANFRED. And I hadn't made it too far, just to lines 196 and 197 of the first scene of the first act, and what did I see but "When the falling stars are shooting,/And the answer'd owls are hooting"? And you know what that means. Well, as long as I'm here, I'll mention a message I received yesterday from DJ Gnosis, who said he had gotten a news alert about his own old "blog," and when he checked it out, he saw that a "web" site called - I think - casino.org had discovered a 2008 "post" of mine, and a contemporaneous "post" by DJ Gnosis commenting on it, about the time I "posted" the first-ever photographic evidence on the "internet" of the existence of the Foster Brooks robot that used to live in Las Vegas until it was dismantled and sold for scrap metal, as we all must be eventually. Quoted in the article? Foster Brooks's own daughter! I would "link" to the article, but, being in the midst of a nightmarish effort to scrub old zombie "links" from the "blog," I am no longer much inclined to "link" to outside sources. Nothing against casino.org! Anyway, this on the heels of my 45-year-old letter inspiring McNeil to watch HARRY AND WALTER GO TO NEW YORK. Given enough time and patience, such meaningless things can happen.

Unrequited Owl

Tom Stoppard, as we learn from this biography of him, wrote many letters to the object of his unrequited love, in some of which he playfully referred to her and himself as "the Owl and the Cat." The author of the biography does not specify which was the owl and which the cat, nor is any mention made of the possible influence of Edward Lear on Stoppard's whimsical entreaties. The one thing we know for sure is that this biography of Tom Stoppard is a book with an owl in it. As long as you are here, I think I should tell you about some developments. Do you remember when I rewatched the film EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE and took note that Mel Tillis sang "sexy smile and Robert Redford hair" in the chorus of "Coca Cola Cowboy," rather than the song's actual lyrics, "Eastwood smile and Robert Redford hair," possibly out of deference to the film's star Clint Eastwood? Why, of course you do. Well! According to wikipedia, the lyric in the movie is "sexist smile and Robert Redford hair." I have done nothing to either refute or confirm wikipedia's claim, but it doesn't make any sense at all. Why would Robert Redford's luxurious, shining locks, which are famously attached to a head encasing a left-leaning brain, be associated lyrically with sexism? Furthermore, the eponymous "Coca Cola Cowboy," one would imagine, drinks Coca Cola, in contrast with the rotgut favored by "authentic" cowboys in disreputable saloons, whom one pictures harrassing barmaids and whooping it up in a sexist fashion. Therefore, the "Coca Cola Cowboy," I would argue, whatever he harbors in his heart, presents a smooth and shallow front, all empty calories and fizz, his immaculate, gleaming teeth as well-tended as his much-brushed coiffure, and is less likely to reveal a "sexist smile" than the fictionalized version of a cowboy to whom he is presented as a contrast. Having done no investigation whatsoever into the matter, I would like to state that I am right and wikipedia is wrong. But in the interest of justice, I couldn't keep the existence of wikipedia's questionable interpretation to myself.

How's the Owl Today

A long time ago, probably in a meeting for ADVENTURE TIME: DISTANT LANDS, Adam mentioned the movie WINTER'S TALE (not to be confused with the Shakespeare play with a very similar title)... I believe that all Adam said by way of assessment was (and this may not be an exact quotation) "It's a weird movie." I couldn't tell if he meant it in a good way, a bad way, or was just stating a fact. But that movie has been in the back of my head for some time. I believe I remarked to Adam that my friend Caroline was wild about the novel upon which the movie was based. I seem to recall that she read it more than once. Again, the facts may not back me up on that. It's just what I have sitting here in my brain. So I watched a little bit of it last night. For reasons unknown, I was like, "It's time!" I got distracted for about two seconds and I looked up and Colin Farrell had made friends with a magic horse? I was like... "What did I miss?" But the main thing I wanted to say is that Russell Crowe goes to a restaurant and orders a pan-fried owl. Now, I can't add WINTER'S TALE to my long list of books with owls in them, because I don't know whether anyone orders an owl for dinner in the book or if it was just a whimsy of the screenwriter. Let me emphasize that the restaurant in the movie did not serve owl, which fact led Russell Crowe to murder the waiter, as one does. So, it's a universe where you can make friends with a magic horse, but you can't go to a restaurant for a nice plate of owl. Such reflections reminded me of the books I have read in which owls are eaten by people... COMING INTO THE COUNTRY by John McPhee and THE WOMAN WARRIOR by Maxine Hong Kingston. I reflected, further, on the use of owl eggs as folk medicine, as reported by Burton in his ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY... a practice which apparently spread to the new world ("click" for details), if it wasn't here already. Maybe I've read other books in which owls or owl eggs are consumed, but I can't remember them right now (see the subject of my failing mind, above), and the whole subject appalls me, frankly. I'm sorry I brought it up. This is why I don't "blog" anymore. PS Here is a sobering postcript indeed. As I was meaninglessly searching for the hyperlinks with which to festoon this surely unread "post," a passing mention led me to recall that my second book, YOUR BODY IS CHANGING, features a political banquet at which owl is served. Weirdly, I was trying to remember the title of that particular short story last night (I still can't remember it), for what I believed were unrelated reasons. I guess my brain was trying to tell me something. Nice try, brain!

McNeil Month By Month

I know a lot of you are worried because I don't "blog" anymore, so how am I going to do my annual birthday tribute to McNeil, in which I give you "links" to the things he has done every month? Well, smooth your furrowed brows and put your troubled minds at ease! Remember, ever since the "blog" officially ended, on the day (coincidentally, or maybe it demoralized me) our TV blew up in April 2016, I have kept a physical log of McNeil's activities, on which I intend to draw here. Naturally, this new style of entry will not lead you back to a particular "link." I guess I will mark them with an asterisk. With such limitations casting a shadow over the proceedings I am delighted nonetheless to present our usual timely tribute to the continued existence of McNeil, yes, I give you "McNeil Month By Month": September 2006: McNeil contends that he does not enjoy the "Little Dot" comic book. October 2006: McNeil furnishes a memorable quotation. November 2006: McNeil recalls playing Aerosmith on a jukebox. December 2006: First appearance of "McNeil's Movie Korner." January 2007: McNeil's system for winning at craps. February 2007: McNeil doesn't see what's so hard about reading a newspaper and eating a sandwich at the same time. March 2007: McNeil and I are talking about Bob Denver when HE SUDDENLY APPEARS ON TELEVISION! April 2007: Wild turkeys roam McNeil's neighborhood. May 2007: McNeil gets in touch with an Australian reporter regarding a historical chimp. June 2007: First McNeil's Movie Korner Film Festival announced. July 2007: Medicine changes McNeil's taste buds. August 2007: McNeil's trees not producing apples. September 2007: McNeil pinpoints a problem with the "blog." October 2007: McNeil presents a video entitled "Jerry's pre-defecation chills." November 2007: McNeil's Theory of Potential Energy. December 2007: What is McNeil's favorite movie? January 2008: McNeil explains why the wind blows. February 2008: McNeil admires the paintings of Gerhard Richter. March 2008: McNeil comes up with an idea for a Lifetime TV movie. April 2008: McNeil's shirt. May 2008: McNeil's apple tree doing better (see August 2007). June 2008: McNeil is troubled by a man who wants to make clouds in the shape of logos. July 2008: McNeil's apples are doing great. August 2008: McNeil refuses to acknowledge that Goofy wears a hat no matter what I say. September 2008: McNeil's grocery store is permanently out of his favorite margarine. October 2008: McNeil on the space elevator. November 2008: McNeil comes across an incomplete episode guide to HELLO, LARRY. December 2008: McNeil thinks the human hand should have more fingers. January 2009: McNeil discovers that gin and raisins cure arthritis. February 2009: McNeil gets a big bruise on his arm. March 2009: McNeil wants a job on a cruise ship. April 2009: McNeil attempts to rescue a wayward balloon. May 2009: McNeil visits the Frogtown Fair. June 2009: McNeil dreams he is watching an endless production number from LI'L ABNER. July 2009: McNeil sends text messages from his cell phone while watching a Frank Sinatra movie. August 2009: McNeil disagrees philosophically with a comic book cover that shows a mad scientist putting a gorilla's brain in a superhero's body. September 2009: McNeil resembles famed boxing trainer Freddie Roach. October 2009: McNeil wears a surgical mask. November 2009: McNeil reports that a bird broke the large hadron collider by dropping a bread crumb on it. December 2009: McNeil advises me to like the universe or lump it. January 2010: McNeil eats soup. February 2010: McNeil tells of the hidden civilizations living deep beneath the surface of the earth. March 2010: McNeil recalls a carpet of his youth. April 2010: McNeil starts wearing a necktie. May 2010: McNeil's DNA sample fails to yield results. June 2010: McNeil thinks up some improvements for the movie 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. July 2010: McNeil reads to me from I, THE JURY. August 2010: McNeil finds a hair in his crab cake. September 2010: McNeil has a cold. October 2010: McNeil sends a nine-minute clip of a nice old man speaking at a UFO banquet. November 2010: McNeil sits in his car and looks at pictures of Jennifer Jones. December 2010: McNeil fears a ball of fire in the sky. January 2011: McNeil watches DYNASTY. February 2011: McNeil sees clouds that look like guys on horseback. March 2011: McNeil composes a "still life" photograph. April 2011: McNeil is upset when I interrupt his viewing of MATCH GAME. May 2011: McNeil pines for some old curtains. June 2011: McNeil eats Lucky Charms brand breakfast cereal. July 2011: McNeil investigates the history of the Phar-Mor drugstore chain. August 2011: McNeil compares Dean Moriarty to Dean Martin. September 2011: McNeil learns a lesson about pork and beans. October 2011: McNeil finds an article describing Robert Mitchum as "Bing Crosby supersaturated with barbiturates." November 2011: McNeil did nothing in November. December 2011: McNeil discovers scientists creating rainbows in a laboratory. January 2012: McNeil impersonates Paul Lynde. February 2012: McNeil dreams of matches. March 2012: McNeil's Theory of Potential Energy (see November 2007, above) used to chart the influence of Jerry Lewis on Carson McCullers. April 2012: McNeil disturbed by the art in his hotel room. May 2012: McNeil considers grave robbing. June 2012: McNeil's idea for "music television." July 2012: McNeil holds his negative feelings in check out of respect when the man who invented electric football dies. August 2012: McNeil reads me an old obituary of Charlie Callas over the phone. September 2012: McNeil concerned about T.J. Hooker's big meaty hands. October 2012: McNeil eats lunch at Target. November 2012: McNeil loves it when Bob Hope slips on a banana peel. December 2012: McNeil sees rocks that look like squirrels. January 2013: McNeil looks at an old, faded photo of a dog gazing into a Bath and Tile Emporium. February 2013: McNeil watches a video in which a hooded figure talks about "our criminal overlords." March 2013: McNeil wakes up at 6:40 in the evening, momentarily thinks it is 6:40 in the morning. April 2013: McNeil sees a singer who looks just like Bill Clinton. May 2013: McNeil is ashamed of himself for not realizing that Ida Lupino directed some episodes of GILLIGAN'S ISLAND. June 2013: McNeil mails a cashew tree. July 2013: McNeil watches GIDGET GOES HAWAIIAN. August 2013: McNeil recalls being rosy-cheeked. September 2013: A fairyland goes on in McNeil's head. October 2013: McNeil recalls tucking in his t-shirt. November 2013: The cover of a book McNeil buys says it is about Jerry Lewis, but on the inside the book is about Willie Stargell! December 2013: McNeil wants to visit an orgone box factory. January 2014: McNeil did nothing in January. February 2014: McNeil wonders whether Tom Franklin puts his hair in curlers. March 2014: McNeil takes a nap in the car. April 2014: The subject of McNeil pops up in an interview. May 2014: McNeil's emails on the "hollow earth" recalled (see February 2010, above). June 2014: McNeil looks forward to getting drunk and making insensitive remarks as I lie on my deathbed. July 2014: McNeil watches Jim and Henny Backus play themselves in DON'T MAKE WAVES. August 2014: McNeil tells about Robert Mitchum's hangover cure. September 2014: McNeil exaggerates the fate of some owls. October 2014: McNeil is incensed that a candy apple costs eight dollars at the airport. November 2014: McNeil's heart overflows with joy. December 2014: McNeil continues his 7-year chimp investigation (see May 2007, above). January 2015: McNeil listens to a conspiracy theorist who says Jimmy Carter was replaced by a series of robots. February 2015: McNeil recalls doing a report about matches in the eighth grade. March 2015: McNeil takes to bed with the flu! April 2015: McNeil and I establish an amazing psychic link. May 2015: McNeil bitterly recalls the time he brought a John Wayne movie to my apartment and we never watched it. June 2015: McNeil dreams about a bearded Dean Martin. July 2015: McNeil has a disappointing encounter with the Grand Canyon. August 2015: McNeil sees a squirrel holding a stick. September 2015: McNeil is saddened by the news of Dean Jones's death. October 2015: McNeil watches STARFLIGHT: THE PLANE THAT COULDN'T LAND. November 2015: McNeil sends video of Joe Namath making and eating a sandwich. December 2015: A coincidence of the type McNeil especially loves. January 2016: McNeil is in a grocery store and they start playing "I Don't Want to Go to Chelsea" over the speakers! February 2016: McNeil watches Don Rickles eat in a bathroom. March 2016: McNeil is duly thrilled when Megan Abbott goes to see CRACKING UP on the big screen. April 2016: McNeil swallows a gnat. May 2016: McNeil recalls the details of a screenplay we wrote in our twenties. June 2016: Destruction comes to McNeil's apple tree! July 2016: McNeil spots Dabney Coleman in an I DREAM OF JEANNIE rerun. August 2016: McNeil points out that Dean Martin had granddaughters named Pepper, Montana, and Rio. September 2016: McNeil is called a "filthy troglodyte." October 2016: McNeil advises me on what to do now that ADVENTURE TIME has been canceled. "I say take it easy for a while... just pretend to write when Theresa's around and then sleep or watch movies when she leaves. Oh hell, you know how to work it," writes McNeil.* November 2016: McNeil sees an owl while walking his dog at midnight. December 2016: McNeil finds an Airbnb listing by "eccentric millionaires" for a treehouse featuring "whimsical taxidermy."* January 2017: McNeil notices that there are lots of ants in his writing.* February 2017: McNeil roots for the guy who stole a bucket full of gold flakes.* March 2017: McNeil reads an article suggesting that all the gold on Earth came from the collision of dead stars and says, "Let's go get us some of this!" seemingly suggesting a trip to outer space.* April 2017: McNeil recalls that he was washing dishes in 2015 when the thought of Gene Gene the Dancing Machine (pictured, above) came into his head. Then he discovered that Gene Gene the Dancing Machine had just died!* May 2017: McNeil watches ISLAND IN THE SKY with his dog.* June 2017: McNeil is happy to see a movie with rotary phones and "people looking up stuff in a filing cabinet for a change." July 2017: McNeil begins alerting me to weather situations in my area like he's my mother.* August 2017: McNeil connects heavenly signs and portents with the death of Jerry Lewis. September 2017: A critique by McNeil inspires a choice of airplane reading material. October 2017: McNeil contemplates buying a stranger's home movies on eBay, including "Trip to Juarez w/Frank and Irene."*

Reading Too Much Into It

I'm lucky enough to have an advance reading copy of Megan Abbott's next book, YOU WILL KNOW ME. I see that a LeRoy Neiman tiger poster appears in it. Megan told me about that poster, which is why it also coincidentally appears in MY next book, MOVIE STARS, in which, as I now see thanks to Megan, I consistently misspell LeRoy Neiman's name with a small "r." But the important thing is that the LeRoy Neiman tiger poster is literature's next big trend. I also came across a subtle allusion to Brian Keith's "Uncle Bill" (pictured) from the TV show FAMILY AFFAIR... a touchstone that is pure Megan, as I know from many a conversation. Last night I was trying to piece together what makes something a "Megan Abbott" novel, other than the fact that Megan Abbott wrote it. Is it that you feel you're on sure footing and then things start to slip away from under you? Characters' nightmares seem truer than their daily lives. I'm grasping here. I know that Megan likes David Lynch, and often cites him as an influence, but it's not precisely Lynchian. Lynch can show you a ceiling fan and fill you with dread. Megan achieves something of the same effect with words. Ordinary things aren't ordinary for her. Uneasiness, I decided. That's what you feel. Megan Abbott is our great author of unease. I already had that phrase in my mind - "our great author of unease" - when I came on this sentence in YOU WILL KNOW ME: "It was upsetting, like the seam of something had been torn, ever so slightly." Yes, it's the "ever so slightly" that marks this perception as Megan's, maybe, and separates her from everyone else. Also, the evocative vagueness of "the seam of something." It's not that Megan "peels back layers" the way people say David Lynch does... it's that the world itself is already hallucinatory and gothic. There's no need to peel back any layers! Megan and I discuss this, or something related to this, in an old interview I hope you will "click" on: see pp. 14-16 (MEGAN: "It’s like the thing that students sometimes say: 'You’re reading too much into it.' And of course that’s what students always say when they’re frightened about what they’re reading"). I'm not saying Megan Abbott and Emily Brontë share a worldview, necessarily, but there's a scene in WUTHERING HEIGHTS that I wrote about for the Rumpus once, "when the housekeeper goes back to visit a sweet little boy she used to take care of, and in the short intervening time something has happened to him. He throws a stone at her head and curses. She tempts him with an orange: '"Who has taught you those fine words, my barn," I inquired. "The curate?" "Damn the curate, and thee! Give me that," he replied. "Tell us where you got your lessons, and you shall have it," said I. "Who’s your master?" "Devil daddy," was his answer.'" Very uneasy, queasy, skating around the edge of normal life. Hmm, maybe it's the orange that seems like a Megan Abbott touch, an otherworldly fruit or shining spot on those bleak moors. In conclusion, there's a significant doodle in YOU WILL KNOW ME that looks "like a cartoon owl." So I can put YOU WILL KNOW ME on my stupid list of all the books I read with owls in them, trying to pin it down and categorize it with my sickening brand of whimsy. Yes, yes, that's it, Pendarvis, laugh your unease away. IF YOU CAN! The last book I read featuring a "cartoon owl" was by Ace Atkins, a close friend of Megan's and mine. Surely this is an area for further investigation, he quipped, narrowly avoiding the abyss.

Blue Curtain

I was already getting sleepy and didn't feel like watching PETULIA on TCM last night. I gave it a few more minutes when I saw Julie Christie and George C. Scott standing in front of this blue curtain. But then Julie Christie showed up at George C. Scott's place unannounced in the morning, blowing on a tuba, and the whimsy overcame me. It's nobody's fault!

The Existence of Robert Walden

Hey but I know you remember last year's Halloween Film Festival when a movie called THE VAMPIRE nearly destroyed us. It wasn't even about a legit vampire. It was about a guy who took pills made of bats! And it wasn't very good. And it was called THE VAMPIRE. So WHERE WAS THE VAMPIRE? It took the wind out of our sails. We didn't think we could go on! Why am I forcing myself to relive this? Well, this year's Halloween Film Festival, by contrast, has been going pretty great! BUT. Then there was this thing we watched called AUDREY ROSE. I guess it started out okay, with an eerily dreamy car crash. But then in the middle it turned into MIRACLE ON 34th STREET. Remember that? That's the movie where there's a trial that hinges on proving that Santa Claus exists. That's not a horror movie! And in the middle of AUDREY ROSE it suddenly turns into a courtroom drama about the existence of the immortal soul! HUH? And how it travels from body to body. And therefore you can't really be convicted of kidnapping somebody if she happens to have your dead kid's soul living inside her. WHAT! And everybody in the courtroom sits around nodding gravely like, "Hmm, makes a lot of sense when you think about it, I guess we should let this guy kidnap whoever he wants." MIRACLE ON 34th STREET handles this kind of implausible legal whimsy quietly and even believably. Here your jaw just drops. And you also realize that now you are watching a flimsy courtroom drama with a million holes in it instead of a horror movie. The defense lawyer arguing in favor of the human soul (!) is played by Robert Walden, the existence of whom the "blog" has proven before. And saintly soft-spoken spiritual weirdo kidnapper Anthony Hopkins sits there having long documentary-style flashbacks (I think) to religious rituals in India, where, throughout the movie, he has been sort of humbly yet obnoxiously bragging about living for a while and it made him so great and quietly humble and everything (it was at this point that Dr. Theresa realized we had been suckered into watching some kind of proselytizing religious movie for our Halloween Film Festival), and the movie suddenly cuts from the stock footage of India to the star of our movie, a little girl, inexplicably marching in a circle with some other little girls around a giant snowman in a schoolyard in New York or wherever the hell they are.

I mean a GIANT snowman! I'm not sure I can get across how big this snowman is, I mean, this is a towering snowman. (This "blog" "post" I found on the "internet" - "click" here - rightly compares it to THE WICKER MAN, which went through my mind too. [I should also include a "link" to this more appreciative though still skeptical analysis of the film.]) Then they put a crown on the giant snowman and set it on fire. Here you can see the girl being hypnotized by the flames because of her crazy soul and all. It made me think of the "burning the witch" segment in Fellini's AMARCORD (pictured), which I believe (if I recall correctly)

symbolizes the same thing the snowman seems to symbolize in AUDREY ROSE: the end of winter's tyranny. And then that made me think of the awesome beginning of Fellini's CASANOVA (below).

Which probably has something to do with fecundity, and so might be related to the coming of spring, I have no idea what I'm talking about, isn't that what's going on in THE WICKER MAN too, somebody help me, I just want to take my mind off of AUDREY ROSE. Then Fellini's CASANOVA made me think of THE LAST TYCOON, the movie version of THE LOVE OF THE LAST TYCOON, which kind of nicely captures the scene from the novel of the intoxicating vision of the girls floating on the big head through the backlot after an earthquake. That's an intoxicating vision it would be almost impossible to ruin.

But THE LAST TYCOON misses so much about the novel. Would you like me to tell you what? OKAY! For example, in the movie, whiz-kid studio exec Robert De Niro explains to a huffy "literary writer" exactly what a movie story is, and that's fine, but De Niro squirms and darts around and leaps about and gesticulates so much while he does it! Really laying it on thick. Whereas in the book, his character (Monroe Stahr) makes the exact same speech, but oh so still and simply... it's better. It's spellbinding! In the novel. A real centerpiece. And there's another big problem with THE LAST TYCOON, which I generally like. But let's not get into that. I do remember reading in Tony Curtis's autobiography about how handsome and fit he was in THE LAST TYCOON and it made Ray Milland and Robert Mitchum so jealous because Tony Curtis was walking around being such a fine hot specimen of manhood, according to Tony Curtis. I find it hard to imagine Mitchum giving a crap. BUT I'M GETTING OFF TRACK. Maybe I'm just avoiding AUDREY ROSE. A long time ago the "blog" used to tally up all the guys we saw in movies with cigarette holders, I can't remember why. Anyway we stopped that nonsense. But the prosecuting attorney in AUDREY ROSE, who hates reincarnation, is played by the stalwart John Hillerman (pictured), and he sits in judge's chambers puffing away on a cigarette through a cigarette holder. The man was born to use a cigarette holder.

I'll say that for him. The movie has a chance to redeem itself (maybe) at the end, when Anthony Hopkins tosses a chair through a two-way mirror (don't ask), a kind of neat effect that perfectly sets up (for reasons we shan't go into) a cathartic solution to all the troubled kid's terrible problems. (Robert Wise, who directed AUDREY ROSE, also co-directed CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE, a much superior horror movie that's not quite a horror movie about parents who don't understand what their child is going through. But he didn't luck out twice with the child actors, I'll tell you that! Though I hate to cast aspersions upon a child actor. So we won't get into that.) BUT! And here is a BIG SPOILER. Instead of fulfilling the perfectly set-up catharsis that was right there in the filmmakers' hands, the kid just flat-out lies down and dies. The kid dies! Boom. She's dead. They killed the kid. No more kid. The kid's just lying there dead. No catharsis for you! And then there's a long solemn epistolary voice-over from her mother (!) about how that all worked out pretty well because her kid's ashes were sent to India (with her creepily beatific stalker Anthony Hopkins!) so maybe the whole reincarnation thing will go better next time. That's looking on the old bright side, I guess.

His Massive Bald Head

Listening to some Sibelius and wondering what barbs the old MILTON CROSS' ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS AND THEIR MUSIC might have to toss at him. You know, Milton Cross and his cronies are very interested in how funny-looking Bruckner was, and how everybody hated Franck, and many other examples of whimsical pettiness I have given you over the dull years of our acquaintance. So I read the little summary of Sibelius's life, and it was pretty worshipful, page upon page of love, in fact, rushing toward an appreciation of his sartorial genius: "He combined meticulousness in his choice of clothes with a passion for comfort. His custom-made suits were sewed a size larger than necessary to give him freedom of movement, and he always wore collars that fitted loosely around the neck. His shoes were made by hand in Berlin." But then, at the beginning of the very next paragraph, old Milton Cross ceases to disappoint! "His massive bald head was evidence of his vanity. When he was forty years old, his first gray hairs appeared. Rather than provide visible proof that he was growing older, he shaved his head and kept it shaved."

Moth, Fork and Leg News

Last night while I was eating with my favorite fork, Forky, it suddenly struck me that my fork must be at least 50 years old. I turned it over and noted the stamp that proclaims it "stainless steel." Let's hear it for forks, a durable tool in this age of passing fancies. In other news, I just picked up a couple of bagels to go and as I was walking back home a moth alighted on the uppermost styrofoam box and rode along for a block before taking flight again. Oh ho ho ho, I thought whimsically, a moth taxi. Gee, I thought. Then Jimmy came over and we discussed the problems our short legs have caused us over the years. "It's hard to buy pants for you," Dr. Theresa volunteered.

Please God Not a Quirky Preamble

So I read the article. You can't judge an article in the New York Times by the cloying rhetorical question in its headline! And the concert under review sounded really good, so I was ashamed. But then I reached the last two paragraphs, the first of which contained this sentence: "With his customary menagerie of plush toys at hand, he paced the room, singing softly while rubbing a pealing tone on the rim of his cognac goblet." Say it ain't so! And in the next paragraph the guy performs "a quirky preamble." Much of the good will built up during the early part of the article was thus sorely taxed.

Jeepers Creepers

"Where Better to Play a Theremin Than on a Boat?" cloyingly inquired one New York Times headline still seared onto the surface of my brain. Today's headline boldly poses that even more cloying rhetorical question, "What’s an Avant-Garde Evening Without a Poet and Plush Toys?" What indeed, New York Times, what indeed. I'll tell you exactly what an avant-garde evening without a poet and plush toys is: worse than the foulest garbage. If I ever arrived at one of my avant-garde evenings and discovered there were no poets or plush toys I'd throw myself down an elevator shaft.

Two Things I Don't Care About or Apparently I Do

"Winner Declared in Chimpanzee Art Contest," goes one headline in today's New York Times: a headline to set your teeth on edge with whimsy and invite no perusal of the accompanying story (though see also). Which reminds me, this phrase was tucked into the New York Times the other day: "rump-shaking among dancing bears." (See also.) I almost told you but then I didn't but now I did. ("Click" here for a related story about two things I didn't "google." And for further contemplation of the hoary dumb old "Why, a chimpanzee could make better art than some of these so-called modernists" gag, which I am not sure has any bearing on the article, avoiding it as I did, "click" here. Ha ha, I know you won't "click" there. You never "click" anywhere. How I hate you!)

Secret Powers

I shot the balloons from a different angle this time to make it interesting, ha ha, just kidding, it is not interesting, it is not interesting at all, nothing is interesting. Coming up on eight weeks and those birthday balloons are still floating. It has almost stopped being cute and whimsical. There's a sinister aspect creeping in. It makes me wonder if you notice what is missing from the picture. That's right: the fish. The balloons are where the fish used to be. The goldfish died in April (though Dr. Theresa briefly brought it back to life with her secret powers - for real!) and I didn't have the heart to tell you. Is the ghost of the fish cursing the balloons? That seems like a pretty feasible possibility. Or is their malevolence unrelated? Right now the single deflated balloon (draped blasphemously across my Geneva Bible, already desecrated by savage claw marks [!] from when one of the cats used to try to jump up and capture the fish) is hiding a Yorick skull that Lee Durkee gave me and a statue of a chimpanzee eating a banana that Dr. Theresa gave me and an owl that Ryan brought back from Iraq (where I sent him; long story) and an origami swan that a nice waiter in a terrible sushi restaurant made me out of a candy wrapper on the night I became deathly ill like President William Henry Harrison - tokens of affection, luck and remembrance I may never see again! The balloons begin to oppress me! WHY WON'T THEY FALL? What terrible cataclysm is in store when they do (see the song "Grandfather's Clock")? Or will they just keep their silent watch, grave sentinels, mocking me - always mocking me! - for my myriad failings? I am overtaken by dread. All is lost.

Sometimes Hilary Duff

Yesterday I turned on the TV and it happened to be tuned to one of these here movie channels, so I saw part of a Hilary Duff movie. See, Hilary Duff was helping out a street musician. This young woman was busking with her violin but it wasn't going well - maybe she was playing uptight violin music that only squares and eggheads could love! (I hasten to add that I have no idea if I am interpreting the scene correctly; I came in at the tail end of it.) Anyway, Hilary Duff and some harmonizing buddies of hers convinced the violinist to play a Four Tops song instead, and Hilary Duff and all her friends sang along, and then suddenly everybody was thrilled. The music faded out and the scene went into slow motion and then it was just Hilary Duff laughing and clapping in slow motion while a mime in a beret and a red-and-white striped shirt waved sparklers in slow motion! This went on longer than you can imagine. I think the filmmaker's intent was whimsy but instead it really seemed that the sparkler mime was horning in on the street musician's turf. He just popped up and started waving his sparklers like a jerk, hoping to cadge some of that sweet Four Tops money, in slow motion, forever and ever, waving his sparklers, while Hilary Duff laughed and laughed, so slowly, kind of terrifying, HA... HA... HA. Then we cut to Hilary Duff on the roof of a building, saying to a boy, "Sometimes I come up here to think." I wonder how many movies that line has appeared in: dozens and dozens, I bet. Later in the day as I was attending to a mundane chore I turned on TCM for company (see also and also) and the movie MRS. SOFFEL was just coming on - a prison romance between Diane Keaton and Mel Gibson. I saw that one in the theater. It doesn't bother me anymore that movies I saw in the theater routinely come on "classic" movie channels now. All I remember about MRS. SOFFEL is walking out afterward and saying to my companion, "They should have called it MRS. SO AWFUL." Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ah, the thoughtless barbs of youth. I am sure Diane Keaton and Mel Gibson worked hard to provide an enjoyable experience, and maybe they did, maybe I was dumb back then, I guess we'll never know. Hey let's keep going with our theme of "movies." As you know, the homepage of my email provider has been illustrated lately with photos of "satisfied customers," I guess they are supposed to be, but they look more like deranged maniacs. Take this guy (above). He's the latest! I don't know if you can see the fine print, but he is supposed to be writing a screenplay... I don't know what that has to do with email. But here is what he has written: "The South Pole. Ext. Yves is sitting on a hill, sobbing. In the distance, Elliott shivers in the cold." He's grinning demonically at the human suffering he depicts in his incorrectly formatted masterpiece! It's obvious my email provider is TRYING TO DRIVE ME CRAZY. Sometimes Yves goes up there to think.

I Hate Myself, New York Times

"Where Better to Play a Theremin Than on a Boat?" asks a headline in the Arts Section of today's New York Times. Oh no, I thought: I am going to read this article. The skin-crawling whimsy of that headline dovetailed so precisely with my interests and encapsulated my love-hate relationship with the Arts Section of the New York Times. Or do I mean my love-hate relationship with MYSELF? Does the gross, precious New York Times Arts Section hold up a horrible mirror to my own empty soul? I guess so!

Jazz Ghost

You know what Frank Kermode said about Shakespeare: "To be able to devote one’s life to art without forgetting that art is frivolous is a tremendous achievement of personal character." And what about when John Ashbery said that poetry is good because of its impracticality? Plus how can we forget the Maine antiques dealer who said, "I think I’m more and more attracted to things that aren’t worth anything"? Let me add a composer I really like, Thomas Adès, who says in a book of interviews, "I have to make gratuitous things... which the philosophers can't explain." He says a lot of other aphoristic things, too! He's very aphoristic. I'd tell you more except I am teaching this book to my grad students next semester and I want to leave some surprises for them. Well, he says some things about Mahler I don't agree with at all, but he does praise Mahler when Mahler "embraces and celebrates the futility of his life and his music." I can get behind that! And then he says (still about Mahler) "good for him. Grand failures are preferable to sneaky successes, aren't they?" And that makes me think of something I have said on the "blog." I can't tell you more! We're reading DRACULA and WUTHERING HEIGHTS in my grad class too. And GLINDA OF OZ, which I haven't yet read, but I'm getting behind Laura Lippman's interpretation, so I am sure it will be a success. I was going to make them read THE PATCHWORK GIRL OF OZ but the ending depressed me too much. (Spoilers here, nearly a century old, but still.) The Glass Cat with awesome brains like pink marbles is forced to exchange them for transparent brains. She becomes "humble" - ugh! - and boring, which in the world of the book is supposed to be a good thing. We all know it's not so. Well, I mean it's good to be humble, of course, but you don't have to be boring about it, and DO try to stop people from switching out your brains on a whim if at all possible. I am quite disturbed, also, by the political system of Oz. Magic is outlawed! You might think my ideas to be conservative. Am I against government regulation? Well, I guess so in this case! Only a certain few government-licensed employees of the state are allowed to practice magic in Oz. If magic spells are the guns of Oz, then Ozma has repealed the second amendment. On the other hand, if you think of magic as free speech (that's probably more like it - I guess!), then I am a true liberal, and Ozma is a censor. The Patchwork Girl never did become "terrifyingly amoral" in my opinion, as Lippman promised. The closest she came was saying that she would gladly "kill a dozen useless butterflies" to help her friend. That was scary! But I guess "punk rock" is the best definition of her in my book. Finally, I should tell you that our annual Halloween film festival ended with a movie called TORMENTED, all about a jazz pianist practicing for Carnegie Hall (!) who accidentally (sort of, not really) lets his girlfriend ("Wow! Look at that brassiere!" exclaimed Dr. Theresa) fall off a lighthouse and then she's dead and a ghost! I particularly loved the scheming beatnik in TORMENTED and kept wondering where I had seen him before. Turns out that many years later he was the bartender ghost in THE SHINING! I learned that from imdb.

The Forced Whimsy of Liner Notes

Very much enjoying this LP (DEAN "TEX" MARTIN COUNTRY STYLE) I just bought for a cool $4 from The End of All Music, the new record store in town, despite the forced whimsy of the liner notes, which conclude thusly: "So look out, pard. Better hide the chitlins and stash Ellie Mae. There's a paisano loose in your hills, wearing a Stetson, followed by a gang of guitar-plunkers in Sy Devore suits and Dodger baseball caps and headin' your way."